He has been on the run for more than a decade, but last night wanted war
crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic was finally arrested in Serbia.

The Bosnian Serb leader is accused of orchestrating the worst acts of brutality Europe has seen since the Nazi campaigns of the Second World War.

Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed in and around the town of Srebrenica in 1995, while more than 10,000 others died during the Serb siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo.

Karadzic was reportedly arrested just after 11pm, after police swarmed the exclusive central Belgrade neighbourhood of Vracar, one of the city’s oldest areas.

According to officials from the Hague Tribunal, Karadzic has not been living in Serbia, but visited the country often for medical treatment and to visit his grandchildren. He travelled with an extensive security detail.

Despite the scale of the atrocities of which he is accused, Mr Karadzic has remained at large for more than a decade, to the fury of prosecutors at the Balkan war crimes tribunal at the Hague (ICTY).

Former chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte frequently demanded that Serb authorities do more to track down the one time Bosnian Serb political leader, but despite claims from Belgrade that its forces were doing all they could, he remained elusive.

The timing of the arrest suggests a dramatic shift in the level of co-operation between Belgrade authorities and the Hague, coming just weeks after a pro-EU government took power in Serbia.

Nationalist parties in Serbia, who narrowly failed to form a government after elections in May, had vowed not to hunt down or hand over Mr Karadzic, and the Hague's other "most wanted" Serb General Ratko Mladic.

But the new coalition formed by moderate Serb president Boris Tadic has made joining the European Union its number one priority, and the EU has long demanded the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic.

"Radovan Karadzic was located and arrested tonight" by Serbian security officers, a statement from Mr Tadic read.

"Karadzic was brought to the investigative judge of the War Crimes Court in Belgrade, in accordance with the law on cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).²

EU foreign ministers are today due to discuss closer EU ties with Serbia.

"It [the arrest]proves the determination of the new government to achieve full cooperation with the tribunal [ICTY]," said EU enlargement chief Olli Rehn last night. "It is very important for Serbia's European aspirations."

If confirmed, the arrest would scotch the long held official Serb position that since going into hiding, Karadzic had fled abroad, possibly to Russia or Belarus.

After the arrest, he was taken to face local Serb prosecutors and medics, who carried out routine DNA tests to confirm his identity.

But there seemed little doubt that the snatch squad had got their man, whose mane of thick grey hair made him an immediately recognisable figure during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

He is rumoured to have sacrificed those notorious flowing locks since the conflicts however, apparently shaving his head and donning a cassock as part of a monk¹s disguise.

Orthodox monasteries, both in Serbia, but also in remote parts of Greece, had been mooted as potential hideouts for the wanted former psychiatrist.

While Bosnian Muslims considered the 63 year-old a modern monster for orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing against them, he remained a hero to many Serbs, and is believed to have been able to rely on official help and popular support to remain on the run.

For years, allegedly shielded by contacts and allies in power in Belgrade, he remained one step ahead of Nato-led raids launched to capture him.

Now, however, the balance of power in Serbia appears to have shifted decisively against him, and he has been taken into custody.

"This is indeed good news for the international community," a Nato spokesman said after the arrest. " This is news we have been hoping for quite some time."

Former EU High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Paddy Ashdown said the arrest was an “extremely important piece of justice for the world at large”.

Lord Ashdown, who said he spent a great deal of time chasing Karadzic, said he was involved in the most “terrible and black period of crime” since the Second World War.

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "We welcome the news that Radovan Karadzic, one of the most notorious indictees from the war in Bosnia has been captured and that he will now face justice in The Hague.

"It is important that the world shows that no war criminal will ever be safe or indefinitely be able to escape.

"Bosnia needs justice and closure and this is an important milestone in this journey. We hope that Radko Mladic will now also be swiftly apprehended."